What Is This NY Times Article Talking About?

There is a NY Times article being prominently displayed right now that is entitled: Labor Unions Fear Rollback of Rights if G.O.P. Wins.

Here is a taste:

Organized labor is deeply worried about what happens after Tuesday.

By many measures, labor unions have been the Republicans’ fiercest, biggest-spending opponents in this year’s campaign, laying out more than $200 million in hopes of safeguarding the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

So it should be no surprise that Republicans, who appear to stand a good chance of winning control of the House or the Senate, are signaling that they plan to push bills and strategies to undermine labor’s political clout and its ability to grow.

“Republicans are likely to pursue a version of what Samuel Gompers often said: ‘Reward your friends and punish your enemies,’ ” said Joseph McCartin, a labor historian at Georgetown University.

One bill that is popular among Republicans would prohibit employers from ever agreeing to unionization through “card check,” a process often used today in which an employer recognizes a union as soon as a majority of workers sign pro-union cards — without holding a secret-ballot election. Another bill would severely crimp labor’s campaign spending by barring unions from using any portion of a union member’s dues for political purposes unless the member first gives written permission.

A Republican-led House or Senate is expected to be more eager than a Democratic-controlled one to approve free trade agreements that unions oppose, and to be more reluctant to enact stimulus plans that unions have supported, like the recent bill that gave states $26 billion to help save the jobs of teachers, police officers and other government employees. A Republican-controlled House or Senate would probably block a labor-backed bill that would give firefighters and police officers in every state the right to unionize.

“We fear that the Republicans are on the march, and that’s why we’re doing everything we can to stop them,” said Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which is spending $91 million in the two-year campaign cycle.

Let's see - since Dems took over, card check has NOT been passed nor signed into law, the UAW has been forced by the Obama administration to take 50% pay cuts, union members with employer-provided health care plans have been nailed with a 40% excise tax on those plans by this president because he didn't want to levy a tax on millionaires to fund his health care reform giveaway to the private insurance industry, and the Obama administration has instituted an official FIRE TEACHERS/BLAME TEACHERS UNIONS education policy.

Seriously, does ANY of that sound even remotely pro-freaking union?

The reality is, this president DESPISES union members.

His attitude is best summed up by his former chief of staff when talking about the autoworkers union: "Fuck the UAW!!!"

Obama has done almost everything he can to stick it to labor union members while still calling on us to GOTV on Election Day and spend millions to save corporate whore Dems who supported both the union-busting Race to the Top program and the 40% excise tax on union members' health care plans.

So I dunno how much worse things could get if the Republicans take a a 15 seat majority in the House and close the gap to one or two seats in the Senate.

They will STILL need a bunch of Dems to pass any kind of sweeping anti-union legislation and they would need even more Dems to vote to override a presidential veto on some sweeping anti-union legislation.

But the reality is, there are ALREADY plenty of Dems ready to support those things and Obama is ever ready to throw labor under the bus as part of some jive-ass bipartisan gesture, so whether Repubs take control tomorrow or not makes no damned difference.

When you have a corporate-controlled Democratic Party and an anti-union elitist corporate whore like Obama in the White House, times are already tough for unions and union members.

I wish the leadership of the unions would finally acknowledge that.

Instead, we get jive articles like the one detailed above.

Sorry, fellows, it's not going to work for me.

I KNOW what you did the last two years.

None of it was pro-labor.